What's Coming for M365 eDiscovery in 2026?
Taking a look ahead on the roadmap
Before we dig into the roadmap, this will be the last newsletter for 2025. I’m taking some time away from the newsletters over the holidays, mainly to deal with a merger becoming effective after the 1st at the day job and to avoid losing my mind. Also, I’d like to get a little time to enjoy the holidays. I hope you do as well!
I’ll be back in January with some new ideas, possibly new resources for subscribers, and ways for y’all to get involved in building that community I’ve been talking about for keeping up with M365! More on that coming in January.
If you have any ideas for that, or want to talk about what you’re tracking going into the new year, let us know!
Now, let’s talk about the roadmap. Here’s the list of things that are directly related to eDiscovery:
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery (Premium) - CMK (Customer Managed Keys) encryption support for data at-rest in Review sets
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
PREVIEW AVAILABLE
June 2026
ROLLOUT START
August 2026
This release of eDiscovery features the implementation of customer-managed key (CMK) options, allowing users to manage their own encryption keys for the data stored in eDiscovery review sets in addition to the default, strong Microsoft-managed encryption already in place.
Roadmap ID
117569
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery - Advanced Review Set Query Editor
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
PREVIEW AVAILABLE
February 2026
ROLLOUT START
July 2026
The Advanced Review Set Query Editor empowers reviewers to harness the power of real-time big data analytics on their review set data. This tool enhances data analysis by offering insights such as identifying top item types, spotting patterns, and trends within the review set. Reviewers can utilize powerful query constructs like complex filtering, pattern-based text extraction, and data format parsing to analyze and find key information specific to their case or organization. The results can then be visualized using time charts, histograms, and other flexible charting solutions, providing a comprehensive understanding of the data’s story.
Roadmap ID
484086
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery (Premium) – Hold reports
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
PREVIEW AVAILABLE
December 2023
ROLLOUT START
June 2026
Out-of-the-box reports that contain information about all legal holds associated with eDiscovery cases in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal. Sort and filter your view based on various criteria and download the aggregated information for further analysis. Note: The status and release month has been updated to reflect the current state. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Roadmap ID
93268
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery - Efficient Review with Advanced Minimization Algorithms
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
PREVIEW AVAILABLE
December 2025
ROLLOUT START
June 2026
Sophisticated algorithms analyze the review set and pick out the best set of documents to review while hiding redundant information. A new analytics relationship view and detailed reports for each analytic run through the new unified reporting format allow you to have confidence in the results. The analytical information is available in both our new insights experience and export load files, allowing you to easily adopt this efficiency boost into any workflow.
Roadmap ID
485766
Microsoft Purview: eDiscovery - Add Sample to Review Set
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
ROLLOUT START
February 2026
This feature allows users to add only a sampled subset of search results to a review set, rather than adding the entire query output. Users can configure sampling parameters—such as confidence level and sample size—to ensure the subset meets their review objectives while reducing unnecessary data ingestion.
Roadmap ID
516578
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery - Generate keyword query language from natural language prompt in eDiscovery with Copilot for Security
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
ROLLOUT START
January 2026
Copilot for Security is embedded in eDiscovery to enable users to provide a search prompt in natural language and will translate into keyword query language to help expedite the start of an eDiscovery search.
Roadmap ID
505444
Cloud instances(s)
GCC
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Import Non-M365 data into review set for modern eDiscovery
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
ROLLING OUT
ROLLOUT START
December 2025
Microsoft Purview modern eDiscovery experience now enables legal and compliance teams to import non-Microsoft 365 data directly into review set as part of the modern eDiscovery workflow. This feature allows organizations to consolidate all their data into a single secure review environment for streamlined review.
Roadmap ID
497638
Cloud instances(s)
Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC, GCC High, DoD
I’m intrigued by the new capabilities coming to review sets. Adding non-M365 data was there before the new interface, so I am curious if they brought it back as-is or made any improvements. Expect some testing results with that in January! The advanced minimization algorithm sounds interesting, as does the ability to load a sample into a review set - a feature that could save a lot of lost time when the data collected doesn’t match expectations.
Of course, there is still a roadmap item for hold reports, even after they reappeared earlier this year. Could that mean improvements? They could use some. I’m hearing reports that the reporting isn't updating correctly as changes are made, which defeats the purpose.
We’ll see!
Some other items have my attention. They don’t directly impact the eDiscovery tool, but they will affect the eDiscovery workflow, some by simply creating data we’ve not seen before:
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Lifecycle Management - Automatic data preservation for high-risk users
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
PREVIEW AVAILABLE
June 2024
ROLLOUT START
June 2026
Adaptive Protection in Microsoft Purview helps you protect your organization’s data by integrating dynamic insider risk levels, determined by data related activities, with various policy engines to automatically moving users in and out of policies as their risk levels change over time. The integration with Data Lifecycle Management will automatically apply retention labels to preserve deleted emails and files based on a user’s insider risk level.
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Cloud Attachments preservation for users on hold
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
PREVIEW AVAILABLE
May 2026
ROLLOUT START
June 2026
Enables cloud attachment preservation for users put on infinite hold so that file versions shared are preserved across any OneDrive or SharePoint site. This is a new capability which is different from the existing capability of applying label to cloud attachments and links present in OneDrive and SharePoint and shared in Exchange, Teams, Viva Engage and Copilot
Planner: Project Manager agent in basic plans
Planner
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365)
IN DEVELOPMENT
PREVIEW AVAILABLE
January 2025
ROLLOUT START
April 2026
Project Manager agent will now be available for M365 Copilot licensed users in all Planner plans, including basic plans.
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Communication Compliance - Ability to set a retention period for a policy
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
ROLLOUT START
February 2026
Introducing the ability to define how long content captured by a Communication Compliance policy is retained. Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance provides the tools to help organizations detect regulatory compliance violations (e.g. SEC or FINRA), such as sensitive or confidential information, harassing or threatening language, and sharing of adult content. Built with privacy by design, usernames are pseudonymized by default, role-based access controls are built in, investigators are opted in by an admin, and audit logs are in place to help ensure user-level privacy.
Microsoft Teams: Ability for all participants to start collaborative annotations
Microsoft Teams
IN DEVELOPMENT
ROLLOUT START
February 2026
All participants in meetings are now able to start collaborative annotations. This will only be available in the new Microsoft Teams experience.
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Intelligent meeting recap can summarize content shared on screen
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365)
IN DEVELOPMENT
ROLLOUT START
February 2026
Intelligent meeting recap can incorporate content shared on screen in the AI-based summary provided after the meeting, providing a richer and more comprehensive recap of the meeting. It captures details that are shown when a participant shares their screen, ensuring those unspoken insights become part of the meeting recap.
Microsoft Teams: Share meeting recap to SharePoint
Microsoft Teams
IN DEVELOPMENT
ROLLOUT START
February 2026
Meeting organizers and presenters can share meeting recap notes and follow-up tasks directly from Teams to SharePoint as a news post, facilitating the seamless sharing of post meeting follow-up details.
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Lifecycle Management - Retention based on Last Accessed for files in OneDrive and SharePoint
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365)
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
PREVIEW AVAILABLE
December 2025
ROLLOUT START
January 2026
This creates the ability to apply Retention to each SharePoint or OneDrive item based on when it was last accessed by a user. #copilotcontrolsystem
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Lifecycle Management - Apply a retention policy to Microsoft Planner content
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
IN DEVELOPMENT
PREVIEW AVAILABLE
November 2025
ROLLOUT START
January 2026
Introducing Data lifecycle management capabilities for Microsoft Planner. Compliance admins can now create a retention policy to manage content located in Microsoft Planner such as tasks for plans associated with an Microsoft 365 Group.
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Use Copilot to Share with Summary for OneDrive files in Windows
OneNote
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365)
IN DEVELOPMENT
ROLLOUT START
January 2026
We’re bringing the power of Microsoft 365 Copilot directly into your daily file experience in Windows. With this feature, users can summarize files and send the summary within the share dialog. This feature will be available in File Explorer and OneDrive Activity Center.
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Video recap in Copilot Chat
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365)
ROLLING OUT
ROLLOUT START
December 2025
Video recaps in Copilot Chat makes it easy to catch up on recorded meetings directly in Copilot Chat. It identifies and extracts key topics from transcripts, provides AI generated narration to summarize discussions, and pairs these with 20–40 second video snippets highlighting impactful moments of your meeting.
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365): Customize AI-generated notes in meeting recap
Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Copilot (Microsoft 365)
ROLLING OUT
ROLLOUT START
December 2025
Users can now customize the AI-generated notes in meeting recap, instantly transforming meeting notes into the format that works best for each person. Choose from built-in options like Speaker Summary or Executive Summary to quickly surface the details that matter most. Users can even create and save their own custom templates with a simple prompt, so meeting notes always match the way each user prefers to work.
Microsoft Purview: Data Lifecycle Management-Introduction of secure workflow to bypass retention holds and delete Teams transcripts and/or Teams recordings
Microsoft Purview compliance portal
ROLLING OUT
ROLLOUT START
December 2025
Introducing a capability to Purview compliance admins via a Data Lifecycle Management to bypass retention hold or legal holds to delete content on OneDrive or SharePoint Online such as Teams meeting transcripts and/or recordings earlier than the hold durations to comply with emerging compliance requirements. Leveraging Simulation, authoring approvals, Audit and disposition reviews to set-up and enforce defensible policies.
I’m sure this doesn’t even begin to cover everything that may impact what you’re doing with eDiscovery. There are also a ton of items on the roadmap that I’m tracking as part of my new role at work, covering information governance and compliance, as well as new Copilot and Teams features to educate users about.
Things are not slowing down in 2026, that’s clear. That’s why I’m looking at better ways to get all of our heads together to help keep up!
See you in 2026!